Birdwatching
12 Common Birdwatching Mistakes Beginners Make in the UK
Most people who take up birdwatching in the UK do not stop because it is difficult. They stop because they spend two cold hours in a wood, see three birds they cannot identify, and go home with wet feet and a sore neck. Nearly every beginner runs into the same handful of problems, and almost all of them have a simple fix. Usually that fix involves carrying less, walking slower and listening more.
Overpacking, and the fumbling that comes with it
The instinct is to buy gear. A bigger rucksack, a flask, a tripod, a second lens, a scope you have not yet learned to use. Then a wren appears three feet away, you go for your binoculars, and you cannot find them because they are buried under a waterproof and a bag of almonds. By the time you are looking, the wren is in the next county.
Weight also makes noise, and noise is the enemy. Zips, rustling fabric, clinking bottles and velcro all carry further than you think in still morning air. Keep it lean:
- One pair of binoculars you have actually adjusted to your eyes (8x42 or 10x42 is a sensible starting point)
- A small notebook and a pencil, which survives rain and cold better than a pen
- A light waterproof jacket in a muted colour
- Water and something to eat
- Your phone, for a field guide app and for recording sounds
Leave the telescope at home for the first few months. It is a lovely thing, but it is not the tool for a hedgerow.
Fieldcraft: you are the loudest, brightest thing in the wood
Birds notice you long before you notice them. They see shape, movement and contrast, and they are far better at it than we are. Walking at normal human speed, in a bright white jacket, along a ridge line, will clear a field of finches before you get within fifty metres.
Slow down more than feels natural. Stop every twenty paces, stand still and let the wood settle around you. Half the birds you would have missed will start moving again within a minute. Wear greys, browns, greens and dull blues rather than white or neon, and keep your silhouette broken up by hedges, gates and tree trunks.
When you spot a bird you want to watch closely, use the same approach every time:
- Stop where you are and watch from there. You often get a better view than you expect.
- Check the wind. Birds are far more relaxed when you are downwind of them.
- Move in short bursts, pausing for longer than you move.
- Stay low. Crouching changes your outline from a person to nothing much at all.
- If the bird stops feeding, raises its head or starts calling, freeze. Let it settle before you take a step.
Fighting your binoculars instead of watching birds
The most common complaint from new birdwatchers is that they cannot find anything through their binoculars. It is almost never the binoculars. It is the technique.
Set the eyecups so you get a full circle of light with no black crescents. Set the dioptre adjustment so both eyes match. Then find the bird with your naked eye first, fix your gaze on a landmark next to it, and raise the binoculars without breaking that gaze. Do not scan with binoculars glued to your face, hunting for a shape you never saw. Hold them with both hands, tuck your elbows against your ribs and rest your weight.
A two-minute drill for the garden
Pick a distant chimney pot or a fence post. Look at it, raise the binoculars and land on it. Lower them and repeat ten times. Do this daily for a week and the awkwardness disappears. Then practise on something that moves, such as a bird on a feeder.
Guessing at calls, and then trusting your guess
Half of birdwatching happens with your ears. Beginners tend to either ignore sound entirely or identify a bird from one snatch of a call and never check.
Start by learning ten common songs properly rather than forty badly: robin, blackbird, song thrush, great tit, blue tit, wren, dunnock, chaffinch, woodpigeon and carrion crow. These are the sounds you will hear in nearly every park, garden and hedgerow in Britain. Listen to a recording once, then go outside, stand still for five minutes and pick them out. Mnemonics help. The great tit really does sound like it is saying "teacher, teacher", and the chiffchaff really does say its own name.
Apps are useful for a second opinion, but they can be confidently wrong when several birds sing at once or the wind is up. If a call matters, record it on your phone and check it later at home with a field guide open.
Disturbing birds without meaning to
Most disturbance is accidental. Someone steps off the path to get a better angle on a nest, or plays a recording of a territorial song in April to pull a bird into view, or lets a dog run through the long grass where a skylark is sitting.
Use your optics instead of your feet. Stay on paths, keep dogs on a lead around nesting habitat and on the shore, and stay well back from any nest you find. Avoid playback in spring and early summer altogether, when birds are defending territory and raising young. Watch for the signals that you have pushed too far: a bird that stops feeding, calls repeatedly, flicks its wings or drifts away from you is telling you to back off, and it is right.
Nearly all wild birds in the UK, along with their nests and eggs, are protected by law, and some species have extra protection. If you are unsure whether your plan is appropriate in a sensitive area or season, check the current guidance from the relevant statutory body for that part of the UK before you go.
Never writing anything down
Memory is a poor record. A notebook with the date, the weather, the wind, where you were and what you saw turns a nice walk into something you can learn from. Add behaviour and calls as well as names. Reading back through a season is how you notice that the fieldfares arrived in the same week as last year, or that you have been misidentifying the same grebe for months.
Send your records somewhere useful, such as BirdTrack, and you add to real knowledge about how birds are faring. Pick one small local patch, a park, a reservoir or a churchyard, and visit it weekly. Familiarity beats novelty every time when you are learning.
Start smaller than you think you need to
Choose one patch within walking distance. Go once a week, at different times of day. Carry binoculars and a notebook and nothing else. Learn ten songs properly. Spend more time standing still than moving. Watch the common birds closely enough that you notice when something is different, because that is the skill that finds the rarities later. Birdwatching rewards patience and repetition far more than equipment, and the sooner you slow down, the sooner the birds come to you.
Photo: Ola Noland / Pexels
